Is This CCSS Criticism Fair?
The supporters of Common Core have eaten so much cheese with their whine that we may have to call a whaaaambulance.Their complaints have been percolating for a while, but the heat of the Louis C.K. flame-up has brought their big bowl of treacly tears to a roiling boil. The criticisms are not fair. Those stupid examples of bad assignments have nothing to do with the Core, and the terrible tests are
Petrilli's Shovel At Work Again
I have a confession to make-- I kind of like Mike Petrilli. I've never met him. I've never met any of the big names in the ed biz, because I'm a high school English teacher in small town USA (isn't the internet cool), so I depend on long-distance close-reading of all these folks, and while many of the Reformsters seem lost or confused or walking in that kind of dull cloud that people fall into wh
Another Plutocrat for USDOE
Alyson Klein at EdWeek reports that Robert Gordon has been chosen to serve as assistant secretary for planning, evaluation and policy development at the US DOE.Gordon's previous work credits include the Office of Management and Budget, where he seems to have been a man behind the scenes for the various Fiscal Cliff negotiations. More recently he's been a guest scholar at the Brookings Institute, a
5-1-13 Curmudgucation Week
CURMUDGUCATION: Throwing AwayIt seems like some kind of joke to call a movement "un-American," but I think the Reformy Status Quo has earned that adjective.Here's the thing about us as a country, as a culture. We fight. We struggle. We have sometimes extremely violent, deadly battles among the many smaller tribes that make up this country. But as a nation we are built to accommodate all